Friday, July 27, 2012

Calling a brownie made with pistachios a “greenie” seemed
like a perfectly sensible thing to do, until I realized that was also the name
of a popular brand of pet treats, as well as the street name for
amphetamines.

Most chefs, not wanting their recipe associated with such
unsavoriness would have changed the name, but not me. I’m hoping that these become so popular that eventually the pet people and druggies
will be forced to change their names instead. We shall see.

Anyway, as I exclaimed in the video, these were great, but
some dark chocolate chips really would have put this over the top. I’m adding a
half-cup of mini chips to the recipe ingredients below, and I highly recommend
you do as I say, not as I did.

I’m generally pretty mellow (unless I’m on greenies) about substituting ingredients in my recipes, but I can’t think of
another nut that would work here instead of the pistachio. There's something
about the relationship between orange and pistachio that’s just so much more
intimate than other nut/citrus combinations.

The good news is, thanks to mass-marketing and large
grocery stores, shelled pistachios are now widely available at a very decent price.
Buy a few extra, since snacking on them while you make these is virtually
impossible not to do. They’re really addictive…like greenies, and greenies. I
hope you give these a try soon. Enjoy!

Ingredients for 9 Orange Pistachio Greenies:

Wet ingredients:

1/2 cup melted butter

2 tbsp grated orange zest

1/2 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 tbsp orange juice

1 tbsp milk

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Dry ingredients:

2 cups shelled, dry-roasted pistachios (*note: mine were lightly salted, so if yours are not salted or heavily salted, please adjust the added salt in the recipe)

18 comments:

I have a monster bag of pistachios from Costco so I shelled out 2 C..man oh man it takes a lot of shelling to get 2 C . Well Im off to throw this together, thanks for the inspiration Chef...the pot heads are posting heavy on you tube and Im getting a kick out of it.

Unfortunately, I don't have speakers on my computer. From the video visuals, it looks like you mix the wet and dry ingredients so that they are incorporated but not really, thoroughly mixed. (Like brownies, yes?)

Also, I'm curious what you used for the glaze on top, since I don't see it written on the blog.

Whenever something needs a hint of orange, lately I've been using one drop of orange oil (made for cooking). It's wonderful stuff. Yesterday I added a drop to homemade cream cheese frosting and it paired perfectly with carrot cake. These greenies look wonderful and I know my pistachio-loving friends will go crazy for them. Thanks, Chef!

I went out and bought some pistachio and shelled it and baked it last night.. But the greenies itself was very salty. I think i will try it with non salted pistachios next time? I really didn't think about it, because of the excitement, until I tasted the greenies and then came back to taste one shelled from the bag I used and it was a little on the salty side. Is it suppose to taste like this?

I hope this isn't too dumb of a question to ask - but when do you prefer to use a food processor (like in this video) and when do you use a blender for chopping/mixing things? Is one easier to use than the other for certain types of ingredients? Can I manage with just one or the other for chopping/mixing purposes or do I really need to buy both?

Great recipe! I used the salted pistachios from Trader Joe's. I was afraid the greenies might be too salty if I used the full amount of salt called for in the recipe, so I only added 1/4 tsp. I also used water in place of milk. They came out perfect!

Hey Chef John, so I love love love your recipes but is there any way you could make add the measurements in grams in recipes? Would be nice for us that live in the metric system side of the world :) Was going to make the orange pistachio greenies today and realized i had no cup measuring cup anymore.

Hi Chef John, I made a double batch and it was gone in 20 minutes - my friends made me promise I make these again around Christmas :)@Anonymous: I also use the metric system and there are some very useful sites that help you with the conversion of the basic ingredients (http://www.traditionaloven.com/conversions_of_measures/butter_converter.html is my favorite). As for the pistachios, 2 cups equals 250 grams.I bought some unshelled pistachios, and if you plan to do the same, make sure you double check, as some small closed pistachios can usually be found in the bag. It can be a nasty surprise if you bite on one.

I made a batch of these today, was out of white sugar so I used brown. Don't know if it made it better or worse than the original recipe... but holy God these are delicious. It will be a while before I crave a normal brownie after this. Threw in a half cup of those real tiny chocolate chips (special dark). Good lord. So good.

Will be making with white sugar soon to compare, though I doubt it will be much different. Delicious is delicious.